After seeing the movie Hugo I was fascinated with the subject of automatons, so I did a little search and discovered this delightful demonstration video. It is an amazing demonstration of a 200 year old automaton which was re-discovered and repaired and now resides at the Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia.
Watch the video here and keep in mind that this thing was created before the days of computer parts, chips, electronics or any of the technology we have today...other than mechanical parts like you would find in an old watch. It's hard to believe how effortlessly it moves and how it can produce seven different drawings.
This creation is amazing and beautiful, but it can only do what it is programmed to do. It has no will, no choice, nor intellect. I was thinking about how this world seeks to mold and shape us into its own image. To make us automatons of satan, with everyone speaking the same lingo, the same catch-phrases, and ultimately the same theology...a one-world philosophy that in the end times stands in opposition to God. Young people are bombarded with the philosophy of this world and the more they claim to want to 'do their own thing' and be unique, the more like each other they become...all traveling along in the same hoard of robotic regurgitation of this world's values. I watch the news and hear people repeating ideas that are so ludicrous as to be nonsensical. And yet they believe they are promoting things profound and noble.
These are strange times indeed, with children being formed into the state's mold. There are strong forces, currents of thought, which are sweeping away a generation and were it not for the intervention of the Lord the result would be an entire planet of automotons...think of Hitler's minions marching in formation, carrying out his bidding. Some of those powerful currents include: extreme environmentalism, "peaceful" Islam, tolerant spirituality, global dependence across the board, and an ever-increasing general hostility against Bible-believing Christians.
May I encourage you with the words of the apostle John. "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world." (1 John 4:1) Do not become an automaton no matter how attractive and reasonable their philosophies and values sound...no matter how noble and compassionate they seem.
God created you and gifted you with your most precious possession apart from your salvation: the gift of choice. You may choose, as Lucifer did, to follow the Lord, or to follow this world. Some would say, "Well if you follow the Lord, isn't that restrictive, and aren't you then an 'automaton'? No my friend, some of the greatest innovations in art, science and technology have been implemented by Christians, who knew that to be made in the image of God is to be creative, unique and productive. To know the Lord places you within a certain set of values, which have been given for your protection, but it also releases you from being bound by the world's philosophies and limitations...into the freedom of the Sons and Daughters of God.
If you follow this world's system, you think that you are being a free-thinking, liberated individual; in reality you become an automaton of this present age. If you follow Christ, you follow the way of liberty...with the right to be Sons and Daughters...and the challenge to become everything God designed you to be. So don't be an automaton.
